


Breaking Ranks

by pieandsouffle



Series: Old Light [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Because who doesn't want that amiright, Breaking Ranks AU, Gen, Rebel AU, Rebels, things are moderately okay au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:02:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5107262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pieandsouffle/pseuds/pieandsouffle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three transfer cadets have been dropkicked into Zare's squad.<br/>And he really, really doesn't trust them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breaking Ranks

**Author's Note:**

> *Fantine voice* I dreamed a dreeeeeaaaammm... where I didn't waste my time writing absolute trash and actually studied for my goddamn exams sheesh
> 
> Also, some of the dialogue is taken straight from the short novel, 'Rebel in the Ranks'.

Imperial cadet training was difficult.

In fact, difficult was far too tame a word for it. Exhausting. Petrifying. Agonisingly, torturously hard. So hard that – at least this year – seven cadets had dropped out, unable to take the rigours of training. Blaster practice, bomb defusing, battlefield simulations, dangerously strict hygiene rules, Sergeant Currahee screaming loudly and _directly_ into a wrongdoer’s face… It wasn’t great. Rewards were good, which meant the winners of the latest task got an extra break, or dessert ration, whatever. But still, even of Zare’s friends had dropped out, completely exhausted and feeling like failures.

The empire didn’t particularly care, especially sentimentally. But strategically? They cared a _lot._

They needed consistent numbers of troops. Seven cadets gone? Well, that was simple. Replace them with cadets from neighbouring worlds and training facilities. It was a simple solution to a mildly irritating problem. Fresh young cadets, successful in their exploits at their former academies, ready for a higher level of training at the main Lothal Imperial Academy.

Seven new cadets had arrived, shepherded into various units. Two were dropkicked right down into Unit Qek. Another was – to their relief – shoved into Dorn. Two girls proudly accepted their positions in the illustrious Besh, which constantly pushed against Aurek for the best unit, and the last two boys found themselves in Zare’s unit. Aurek.

And Zare really, _really_ didn’t like the newbies.

It wasn’t that they were incompetent. They _couldn’t_ be. They had completed their first stage of training successfully, just as Zare, Jai and Oleg had.

Well, okay. It wasn’t _all_ of the cadets that Zare had a problem with. Four of them were just right, settling in normally, behaving normally, just – well, being normal cadets.

The other three… well, he wasn’t sure about them.

The first one was Dev Morgan. He was thin and had awful posture and a haircut that was _completely_ against regulation. A flop of blue-black parted in the middle, each perfectly untamed hunk dancing in front of his eyes. Zare was personally surprised Currahee hadn’t swooped down immediately like some kind of mynock… but then again, it wasn’t as though _Jai_ had a regulation haircut. She was probably waiting to gleefully pounce on them all when enough rule-breakers accumulated.

Dev was a transfer from the Pretor Flats Academy, and immediately established a reputation of being preposterously arrogant, and _worse_ – he was absolutely _right_ when he said he was the best.

Well. Not _quite_ the best.

***

The other two cadets were friends, transfers from the Vergesso Asteroids. The girl was called Bialé Trillay, a Nabooan recruit who had bounced from academy to academy as her parents moved around the galaxy. The boy was Daymar Dunestrider, a boy about her age with a thick Tatooinian accent who had befriended Bialé at Vergesso. Both were short and skinny, but had wicked gleams in their eyes when they introduced themselves that couldn’t signify anything good, for anyone.

Daymar, despite the gleams signifying a demonic soul, was just – _too_ nice. He would be the one to give away his dessert because he didn’t _really_ want it, and anyway, you guys worked way harder than I did, _you_ deserve it. The kind of – no, he was the kid who asked after the others and was genuinely glad for one of the recruits, Zare, maybe, admitted they had a girlfriend outside the academy.

His non-regulation hair put him right in the same category as Jai and Dev, except this time with a blonde fringe that hung over his eyes and hid the gleam. He said ‘good morning’ brightly every sunrise, helped the others up after disastrous tasks, made sure every other cadet was happy and not possessing serious injuries, and always had that look of intense concentration when Currahee was barking orders at them.

Maybe that was why she hadn’t pounced on him. He paid attention to her more than any other cadet. She might’ve grown a slightly soft spot for him, durasteel hard rather than diamond hard. Currahee had taken one look at Ezra and decided he was the spawn of the worst rebels in the galaxy.

Which was absolutely true. But he didn’t particularly enjoy being treated like one.

Daymar was great to be around. But Ezra didn’t trust him. No. For all his naivety and humbleness, there was something quietly lurking beneath the surface. One didn’t get into the Imperial Academy by being sweet. Daymar might act all innocent, but he was hiding something. Or maybe it was just who he was. A kid who wanted to serve the empire… even if that meant causing widespread oppression.

Bialé was something else entirely. The most competent cadet in the entire academy, well-mannered and serious – at least until the officers weren’t around. Her uniform was as perfectly crisp as her Nabooan accent, her hair was braided back severely, and there was a permanent line between her eyebrows as though she were constantly in state of disapproval… although that line disappeared when she saw Daymar do something stupid/noble, so she wasn’t completely proper. And the exchanged glances between Bialé and Daymar signified that they absolutely knew something the others didn’t, and that they found it amusing. She was the picture of a perfect cadet, the perfect soldier, a perfect imperial officer.

She was terrifying.

Ezra had considered trying to get Daymar and Jai to run away when he finished the operation, but was now just thinking about Jai. Even if Daymar _did_ decide to go, there was no way he’d leave without telling Bialé. And she would get them arrested, or hunt them down herself.

***

The five boys – Zare, Jai, Oleg, Dev and Daymar found themselves woken at the crack of dawn by Sergeant Currahee, who was on her rounds waking up the various units. And they were Unit Aurek, which, unfortunately meant they were first to be dragged unceremoniously from sleep.

Daymar and Jai seemed to realise she was coming almost before they woke, Oleg and Zare himself only just made it to standing when she burst in, mouth wide open, prepared to scream. Dev, unfortunately, caught his foot on a sheet, tripped, and stood a second after he was supposed to.

Naturally, Currahee screamed at him for a while. Zare absently imagined that annoying hair being blown back from the sheer sonic force. Currahee paused for breath, seemed to debate whether she could yell for a little longer, and reluctantly turned to the other cadets.

“Today you go to Commandant Aresko," she growled, turning her gaze from Dev to glare at all five of them. "He's conditionally approved you to begin field training after winter break. He thinks you're ready to try your hands at being soldiers." Her cold tone stated that she clearly didn’t agree with the Commandant’s opinion.

"That means he'll be supervising the rest of the week's assessments personally – and only the most promising cadets will be tested," she said, leaning close to Dev with an evil glare. "If any of you make me look bad, I'll have you scrubbing floors and hauling trash before dawn every day for the rest of your term!"

“Sir – Ma’am, yes ma’am,” Dev said with a salute.

“Yes ma’am,” the others chanted. Her expression softened infinitesimally as she looked at Daymar, and she stormed out to confront Unit Besh.

Bialé was probably awake already, tidying her bunk, braiding her hair so tightly it was surprising it didn’t fall out, and removing individual hairs from her uniform. It was hardly fair. Aurek was supposed to be the best unit, but the girls of Besh were easily better in combat, discipline… _everything._ And Bialé was the best of all the cadets in the entire academy.

Zare supposed that Aurek was the ‘best’ unit because it hit them hard when another supposedly ‘inferior’ (inferior meaning slightly further down the Aurabesh) unit beat them. It was good discipline, understanding that one was _never_ the best, even if everybody thought so.

Or it could’ve been because Currahee hated the lot of them and thought it was good to crush their spirits.

Whichever the correct answer was, it was working.

“Not a morning person, then,” Dev grinned.

“Neither are you, apparently," Oleg sneered. "Did they let you sleep in at the Yokel Flats Academy or whatever it was?"

"Sometimes," Dev yawned. "It was a reward for winning assessments. Kind of like the three I won yesterday. And the two I won the day before that."

“You _tied._ And were _second_ , technically,” Oleg snarled, and was likely going to threaten Dev a bit, but Daymar intervened.

“Sergeant Currahee would probably like you more if you respected her,” he offered, pulling his boots on and dragging splayed fingers through his hair. Zare noted how Daymar took away the attention from the fact that _he_ was the best, even though the corner of his mouth was curling upwards slightly.

Dev shrugged. “Do I need her to like me? Nah. I just need to show I’m the best cadet in the squad.”

Jai and Daymar laughed. “Which will be hard, considering L- Bialé.”

“Well, the best male cadet, then. In Unit Aurek.”

“That,” Zare interjected, foraging for his uniform jacket, “would be difficult. Considering it’s Daymar.” Maybe he didn’t trust the three transfers, but he would prefer to flatter Daymar than inflate Dev’s already swollen head.

Daymar looked delighted. Dev winced, and pretended to clutch his heart. “Low blow, Leonis.”

“You’ll live,” Zare muttered.

He didn’t understand Daymar and Dev. Well, Daymar, yes. He paid attention, and his wins were well-deserved. But Dev was frequently berated for daydreaming, and yet he always managed to snag that second spot, always a few seconds behind Daymar. And then followed by Jai. And if they trained with Besh, the three transfers were always standing triumphantly at the top.

It was spot of resentment. Zare didn’t like the empire, but it still rubbed him up the wrong way that he had previously been one of its best cadets. It was wrong to compare himself to others, because how would he appreciate his own victories then, if they were never as good as someone else’s?

Daymar smiled at Zare, tunic slightly rumpled at the waist, but Currahee would let it slide without too much screaming. “Well, let’s go! Then we can avoid any yelling.”

How anyone could be that positive, it was anyone’s guess.

In the mess hall, Daymar planted himself down beside Bialé and they ate quietly but contentedly, occasionally offering bad puns when Dev cracked jokes. Zare scarfed down his food quickly, wondering what was in store for training today. Dev spent breakfast cracking jokes with Jai, and Zare wondered (he was doing so much wondering these days – where his sister was, what the other cadets were doing…) how in the galaxy he’d managed to polish off his meal that quickly if he were telling jokes the entire time.

Units Aurek and Besh walked over to Taskmaster Grint, who Gungan-marched the lot of them to the assessment hall. The blast doors were fully open, the Capital visible in all its glory – which wasn’t much. This was Lothal. Nothing special.

"And halt!" Grint ordered, facing Aresko, who was primly waiting above them all, command platform several meters above their heads. "Squad NRC-077 for your inspection, sir."

Aresko gave a thin-lipped smile in recognition, and began. "Cadets, you entered this facility as children," he said. "And in a few short weeks, you will leave as soldiers. By the time you complete your training, you will be prepared to serve your Emperor. Today, we will test your strength and resolve. Are you ready to become stormtroopers?"

_“Sir, yes sir!”_

“At ease,” Aresko finished, and turned his attention to his datapad.

The cadets pulled off their helmets, and Zare gave a quiet sigh of relief. Daymar’s hair was covering his eyes again.

“A bit soon, isn’t it?” he asked. “Stormtroopers in a few weeks?”

Zare shrugged. Maybe at the Vergesso Academy, they didn’t really do or say much other than train the recruits. Vergesso wasn’t exactly an elite school, as far as Zare could tell. “Not really.”

Daymar bit his lip. “Oh. I thought we’d have more time.” His eyes seemed distant for a second, and like clockwork, Bialé popped up behind him.

She removed her helmet and patted Daymar on the shoulder. “We’ll be fine.”

There was something else meant in that ‘we’ll be fine’, and it wasn’t ‘we’ll graduate with good reports’. Zare just had to work out what it was. Maybe Merei could look something up about them…

Currahee pointed at three of Bialé’s unit, Scerria, Millas and Darson. “You three. Your stamina tests were unsatisfactory. You will be repeating that today instead of this activity.”

Zare could almost feel their internal groans, and they dejectedly followed Currahee to run laps around the academy.

The ground shuddered beneath their feet, and descended.

“What – ?” Oleg began, forgetting to sound mean, and Bialé put her helmet back on.

“Next test,” she said simply. Daymar nodded and copied her.

"Cadets, you are descending into the Well and must climb out with all deliberate speed," Aresko said, looking down at them. He was growing smaller with every passing second. "The winners will be given the honour of serving as aides in Imperial headquarters."

Zare's eyes widened. That _was_ an honour! And honour which might bring him a step closer to finding Dhara…

Dev raised his eyebrows interestedly. The transfers’ heads tilted simultaneously beneath their helmets.

"Those who lose will be serving Taskmaster Grint, and wish they'd stayed at the bottom of that Well."

"I'm taking that prize," Jai said confidently.

"Not today, Kell," hissed Oleg, shoving Jai in the back. Dev pushed Oleg right back.

"Back off, Oleg," he said.

"You, too, Morgan-you're both going down," Oleg threatened. He glared at Daymar and Bialé. “You two as well!”

“Of course,” Bialé said. “Obviously Daymar and I, the most competent people here, are going to fail a little test to you.”

Zare tried to convince himself that he was above this kind of competitive behavior, but he nearly laughed when he pictured himself saying it.  He’d been the captain of a _grav-ball_ team. Of course he was competitive.

"The assessment begins in four... three... two... ONE!" Grint boomed, stabbing at his datapad on the ‘one’.

The transfers leapt immediately into action. Bialé leapt onto the nearest platform, catching Daymar’s hands as he leapt too, swinging him up as the platform went skyward. Dev caught the bar on the underside of the same platform, swung himself to the next empty platform. Jai followed, a little slower, but faster than the remaining two cadets all the same.

Zare and Oleg rushed after them, all too aware that they’d be serving Grint if they came last. But however quickly Zare leapt and jumped and dodged Oleg’s nasty attempts at pushing him off the platforms, he was still behind Jai. Who wasn’t exactly going well, at least compared to the three little prodigies.

A transfer victory was all too easy, it seemed, until electricity coursed through Daymar and his feet slipped from the platform. Bialé made a lunge for him, but he missed her hands and fell, landing on his back on a lower platform. Dev winced, and continued to leap his way up.

“Keep going!” Zare heard Daymar gasp over the shared comm. A nasty tingle sizzled at the back of his head, and he jumped for another platform. He turned, and his former platform crackled with electricity. Ouch. His suspicions confirmed.

Unfortunately, Jai wasn’t quite as successful, and he found himself back on the ground, moaning as a thin trail of smoke wafted from his tunic. Daymar was already on the move, dancing back up and overtaking Oleg in a matter of seconds.

Zare felt a blaze of annoyance, and decided then and there that he _was_ going to get in the final three, transfers be damned.

And for the first time since the transfers arrived, Zare finished in the final three. Bialé, of course, was first, followed by Dev. Daymar managed to beat Jai and Oleg for fourth, but he crawled out of the Well moaning a little, and didn’t sound like he’d _really_ appreciate serving anyone anywhere.

“Quite a finish. It seems this trial was too easy,” Aresko said, not looking particularly impressed. “Trillay, Morgan, you both set records.” Then his gaze turned to Zare. “And is it… Leonis?”

“Sir, yes sir.”

“You three are today’s winners. But rest assured your next trial will be a greater challenge.”

Bialé helped haul Daymar to his feet. “Ugh,” he said.

“Too bad you miss out on the assignment, tiny,” she replied.

“Tiny? _Three_ centimetres…” Daymar hissed, but he didn’t sound very angry.

***

Aresko lead the three winners through the Academy, Bialé at the head of the cadet line, Zare at the back, with Ezra planted right in the middle.

It wasn’t quite ideal; it would be much easier to signal to Chopper (when he eventually turned up) if he were at the back of the line, but he couldn’t afford to turn around and say to Zare, “Hey! You mind if I swap places in the line?”

Zare clearly wasn’t an idiot, and he seemed to be wary of Ezra – or ‘Dev’ anyway – already. Ezra couldn’t just make it easier for the cadet to work out who exactly he was.

And he didn’t want to make a scene. Bialé was in front of him, and was very serious, determined, well-behaved, smart, strong, quick and pretty, and Ezra would rather have one of his toes broken every week than get on her bad side. Hey, maybe he fancied her a little. Maybe he fancied Daymar a bit too. But hey, they were pretty nice and good-looking, so why not?

As they rounded a corner, a newly painted Chopper whirred towards them, black paintwork showing his true, evil nature.

Ezra allowed himself to smile faintly as he signalled to the droid as he slowed beside the line of cadets.

For some of the most highly-trained kids in the galaxy, they sure couldn’t see betrayal when it was right under their noses.

Ezra didn’t see Zare’s eyes narrow as he watched Chopper. And he certainly didn’t notice that Bialé had disappeared.

***

Their tasks were relatively simple: delivering datapads and messages and that sort of thing. Zare wasn’t sure what was quite so great about running stupid errands for officers, but he _did_ learn something useful: Dev was definitely not who he seemed.

He saw Dev sneak into Agent Kallus’s office. For a few seconds he stayed dead still, debating whether he should go straight to Kallus, but – well, Zare wasn’t on the empire’s side. Clearly, Dev wasn’t either. Maybe Dev and Zare weren’t incredible pals or anything, but he wasn’t going to rat him out.

Zare looked over his shoulders; Kallus had disappeared off to speak to some important visitor. Then he set up outside the door, helmet tightly on his head, just waiting for Dev to emerge with whatever he was stealing.

He wondered what the mysterious cadet would do when he saw Zare. Deny everything? “Oh, I’m absolutely not stealing! No! Not at all! I was just – um…” Making a run for it? If he did, it wasn’t as though Zare could catch him. And he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to. A punch in the empire’s face was a good thing, right? Even if it was coming from someone untrustworthy?

The door opened in a hiss, and there was Dev, looking very satisfied with himself, helmet tucked under his arm.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Dev reeled back in shock. Zare forced himself to hide his satisfaction. Finally, something the little prodigy hadn’t seen coming.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Zare could see the little wheels behind Dev’s eyes turning furiously in an attempt to formulate a plan.

A door elsewhere slid open with that familiar hiss, and Zare automatically shoved Dev inside, the door shutting quickly behind him. The office was tidy and empty, but Dev looked horrified and alarmed and – was that worry? Not over being yelled at, obviously, but something else…

Zare turned back to Dev to demand him to tell him just _what_ he’d been doing, when a flash of light from inside Dev’s helmet caught his eye. Was that - ?

"Hey! Get out of there," Dev objected as Zare snatched a silvery square from the helmet. He turned it over for a second in his hands, but he’d known instantly what it was.

A decoder. Specifically, the kind Merei had needed to access those files about his sister…

Dev was looking for the same thing. But why?

"I figured it would be something like this," Zare said. Maybe if he sounded like he knew what Dev was doing, Dev would try to defend himself, thus confessing.

"It's not what you think,” Dev replied immediately.

Well, maybe not.

"I think this device has a built-in sensor, which would trigger that," Zare said. He pointed upwards at a sensor surreptitiously fixed above the door. He watched Dev’s eyes follow his arm. "You try walking out with this thing, the whole facility goes on lockdown. Clever."

Dev looked up at the security sensor and looked so helplessly confused for a brief second that Zare nearly laughed.

"Wait... are you trying to help me?"

Zare held up the decoder, arching his eyebrows. It was fairly obvious just what he was doing.

"You really want to discuss this? Here and now?"

"Uh," said Dev, fixing the decoder back into its designated slot. "Not so much. Yeah. Not at all, really.”

***

Zare was a good ally.

He followed Ezra’s instructions _mostly_ without questions, and when he did pause to add something, it was usually just to mention a way better method of doing exactly what Ezra had just said they should do. He listened when Ezra almost panicked about the inquisitors, and was the one to convince Jai to join them in their seditious activities.

And now that Jai was on board, things were going smoother than possible. The codes had been delivered and returned. Kanan and Hera were on their way to sabotaging an imp shipment.

Even as Jai and Zare climbed into the walker with the uptight Bialé, he could feel that things were going according to plan.

***

“What is that?”

 “My cue,” Jai said coldly, and blasted the pilot into unconsciousness. He turned for Bialé, but she grabbed his wrist, twisted, and in a matter of seconds had the blaster pointed at them.

If Dev had just made it into the last three… Zare felt his stomach sink, and he knew that it didn’t matter if they were armed and Bialé was tied up, upside down, and missing every single one of her limbs, she would _always_ win against them.

What was the empire going to do to them? Kriff, what was _Bial_ _é_ going to do with them before she handed them over to the officers? Or the inquisitor?

Zare used to pride himself on the fact that he wasn’t easily scared. But he was afraid of Bialé, that was for certain. Scared of this short skinny teenager.

“If you wanted to sabotage the academy so much,” she said coolly, “you really should’ve told me. You’d’ve gotten out without drawing so much _attention._ ” She glared at Zare, tilted her head, and then threw him the blaster. “I’ll get us outside the building, alright?”

“Uh - ” Zare tried to reply. She was helping them? He shook himself. “Of course.

She unstrapped the pilot from the harness and shoved him sideways. He fell limply and landed with a thud.

“He might wake up,” Zare warned as Bialé strapped herself in.

“Then shoot him again,” she responded, methodically pressing buttons and pulling levers. “And if he keeps waking up, just keep doing that.”

“He might not be the only problem,” Zare said, thinking of all the troopers back in the hangar. Did they think the walker was off to blast whatever had caused the explosion? Or were they smarter than that, and realized that the walker was no longer under imperial control?

Bialé closed her eyes.

For a few horrified seconds, he was sure the AT-DP was going to crash with a pilot who _wasn’t looking where she was going, kriffing h e l l_ \- then her eyes flicked open again.

“We don’t have to worry. Not yet, anyway. Lu – Daymar’s taking care of it.”

Jai’s eyebrows popped upwards. “Daymar’s in on this as well?”

“What a great idea, sending a kid in alone for a mission. Brilliant.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.”

“Mm.” She reached for a lever, hesitated, then wrapped her hand around it, and – let it go without moving it. “Luke is so much better at this than I am,” Bialé muttered to herself, hands dancing over other, more familiar controls of the walker. Zare could barely catch what she said.

“Can you still control it?”

“Whaddya _think_ I’m doing? I said he was better, not that I’m useless,” she snapped. Her voice had changed, her crisp accent disappearing as her words ran into each other.

“Who’s Luke?”

“Someone you don't need to know about.”

“Who’re _you_?”

“Someone you don’t need to know about,” she repeated, glaring dead ahead and continuing to avoid blaster shots with some skill. Whoever Luke was, it seemed _impossible_ that he could manoeuvre an AT-DP more gracefully than Bialé.

The walker shook, and she swore colourfully in Huttese. “They went for the ankles, weak spot,” she explained quickly, wrestling with the controls as the walker struggled to – well, walk.

“Can we do something about the shielding?” Zare asked, eyes flicking around the cockpit for something to grab. He cursed himself for not understanding mechanics as well he’d like to; honestly, it was surprising he hadn’t had to repeat a year at school for less-than-perfect results in that subject.

“Nah, but if we get out the blast doors before the walker collapses we’ll have a decent chance of getting outta here. You got another – associate, on the outside?”

“Dev,” Jai answered. “He started this whole plan. Something about an imperial shipment he wants to sabotage.”

“Great!” Bialé said, sounding far less serious than she had earlier. “I mean, you guys completely screwed up our mission, but we have enough to get by. And from what I heard, getting _that_ shipment’s like a kick up the empire’s kriffing backside.”

Her personality had changed utterly. Her words stretched and others shrank, and she had a smile pulling up one corner of her mouth. She looked like she could be more a smuggler than a cadet.

Whoever – or whatever – she was, she was, at the very least, a good actress, that was for certain. And it was pretty clear that she was _not_ merely the least.

Another blast rattled their teeth inside their skulls. “I’m only here because apparently an inquisitor’s going to abduct me ‘cause I’m sensitive in something,” Jai admitted.

Bialé’s expression dropped again, and she stared at him from the corners of her eyes, trying to divide her time between the onslaught of blaster bolts and Jai. “Force sensitive?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d ya find out?”

Jai shrugged. “Dev. He’s met the inquisitor apparently. Force-sensitive too.”

“I think,” she said, “I need to talk to Dev.”

They had nearly reached the blast doors when the final blasts toppled the walker. Bialé gritted her teeth and held up next to the controls; Jai and Zare just grabbed onto the nearest solid object and hoped they didn’t die.

***

Ezra almost panicked as the walker’s legs crumpled, the body falling and landing with an absurdly loud crash, the blast door crunching down on the metal with a shriek. He let go at the last second, jumping to change his velocity, and hit the ground harder than he’d’ve liked, but not hard enough to seriously injure him.

Someone else swore behind him, and he spun to see Daymar skidding out from under the blast doors, looking pale and determined. Sabine was behind Daymar, fingering her blaster as she watched the young cadet.

“Lé’s in there,” Daymar said by way of greeting, and rushed for the AT-DP hatch.

How was he going to explain that Jai had stunned Daymar’s friend because they were insurgents? The Tatooinian probably wouldn’t take it well when he saw his best friend unconscious. Maybe he should just club Daymar over the head with the nearest debris and make a run with the others – oh.

Bialé was the first to clamber from the wreckage, eyes piercing. Daymar looked relieved, and – helped her pull the others from the walker?

“ _Mikiyuna ta rebehl_ ,” Bialé said instantly to Daymar. “ _Boska. Shado.”_

“ _Choy? L_ _é_ _, haba – Chuba vopa bolla, veepa?”_ Daymar asked.

“ _Oto jee jee bolla gran shado_ ,” Bialé seemed to agree. “ _Jee jee bona nai kachu.”_

“I think they’re speaking Huttese,” Zare offered Ezra. “And they’re on our side. And she’s kind of angry we ruined their mission.”

Ezra wished, for the thousandth time, that he’d been able to learn another language. He knew some Lothali and was fluent in Basic, and was struggling along with Binary, but at least could vaguely understand Chopper. But Huttese was one of the most widely spoken languages in the _galaxy,_ and yet he couldn’t understand it.

It was embarrassing, really. Especially next to Sabine, who was either conversational or fluent in 90% of all known languages.

Sabine looked at the two thoughtfully. “They’re just talking about how they have to get out of here, basically. Which I agree with.” She eyed a stormtrooper who was struggling to pull themselves out from under the mostly-closed blast doors, and her hand wavered over her blaster.

“ _Chuba,_ ” Bialé began, pointing at Ezra, but stopped. “You,” she corrected herself. “We need to talk to you about the inquisitor. _”_

“ _Hees jeedai_ ,” Daymar whispered. Then he shook himself and turned to the others, looking far more commanding than he had ever before. “And, I’m guessing you have a route out, and since we’re gonna help you and you messed up our mission, we need a lift.”

“Done,” Ezra said immediately.

“Hold it just a sec,” Sabine said, blasting the stormtrooper the second he victoriously stood up from squirming underneath the blast doors. “It’s bad enough we’re taking two extras, we can’t do four.”

“Three,” Zare corrected. “I’m staying to find my sister.”

Ezra opened his mouth to object, but Sabine cut him off.

“I stand corrected,” Sabine said. She turned to “And how can we trust _you_?”

Bialé raised her eyebrows.

“ _Jee jee ust ta Tatooni rebehl sull, chone jee jee ust invusto ta kagwa forse-sensi jujiminmee d’emperiolo Lothal,”_ Daymar replied immediately.

“ _Aslo,”_ Bialé added, “ _jee jee jeedai.”_

“… Get in the speeder.”

***

More rebels? Excellent. It was a ridiculous coincidence it was all happening at the same academy. One Lothal insurgent recruits two cadets. Another two cadets are revealed to be Tatooinian rebels. An eventful day.

Zeb seemed suspicious of the two kids at first, but Daymar smiled and began admiring his bo-rifle, and the two were soon eagerly discussing the pros and cons of hand-held blaster as opposed to rifles. It was odd. Now that they were no longer pretending to be others, their personalities had changed. Daymar was a lot less innocent than he let on. And Bialé, when she wasn’t speaking in rapid Huttese into a comm on her wrist, cracked some of the most inappropriate jokes Ezra’d ever heard in a Tatooinian drawl.

Ezra nearly blanched when she first began talking into her comm, wondering if she was talking to an imperial agent, but Sabine didn’t react.

“Her dad, I think,” she muttered to Ezra. “He keeps calling her pet names and asking about her and Daymar’s general well-being.”

“What are they?” he asked. “What did he say when you didn’t want to let them come with us?”

“She said they were the Tatooine cell, and were here because of some kidnappings.”

“It’s happening all over the place,” Bialé interjected. “We had to come after the last one. Zare’s sister, Dhara. We’ve worked out that they’re - ”

“- Harvesting,” Daymar added with a disgusted expression, “Force-sensitives for either brainwashing or training. But we’re not quite sure _who’s_ after them and _you_ do.”

“ _And you’d’ve been safer if you hadn’t,_ ” the man – her father, it seemed – on the comm insisted in Basic.

“You said yes. No takesies-backsies. And our new pal knows about it, so bonus there.”

Ezra got the impression that her father was glaring into the comm, or possibly pretending to strangle someone. Then the man sighed.

“ _I’ll be on Lothal in two hours. Do not get yourselves hurt in that time, or your mother will bludgeon me to death.”_

Honestly, Ezra couldn’t wait to meet him.

**Author's Note:**

> Good god, you made it to the end. You should get a sticker for that, at the very least.


End file.
